The goal of this blog is to help you hold your own in political discussions--especially when the other guy's fighting dirty. Some dirty tricks are obvious, others are subtle. But even when they're blatant it can be hard to know what to say. I'll help. I lean Democrat myself, but I'm as against Democrats using underhanded tactics as I am against Republicans doing so. Fair is fair, and this blog aims to help anyone who shares this belief.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Romney would make a decent prez IF...

Mitt Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts proved that he can work with a Democratic legislature and govern from the center. He's demonstrably intelligent. He has been abroad substantively (i.e. more than a beach vacation to a tropical resort). His experience as governor is applicable to being President (not as good as actually having been President for 3 years, but good). Likewise business experience is good on the face of it (especially if it were in export-oriented manufacturing, which it isn't).

All in all he'd probably make a decent president of the United States, IF:

1. Congress is certain of having a 51% Democratic majority in the House and a 61% Democratic majority in the Senate;
2. He's lying about his foxhole conversion to extreme right wing positions; and
3. No Supreme Court justice outside the extreme right wing faction (i.e. Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Scalia, plus, part of the time, Kennedy) retires before 2020. Several of the moderate justices are quite old, however.

#1 because, like school teachers who teach to the middle of the class, whatever that is, Romney's record is that he weathervanes--within the Republican framework, to be sure--whoever it is whose cooperation he needs to do his job.

#2 because he swears that he's now a right wing extremist, though it doesn't seem convincing to most right wing extremists; but I think we should take people at their word unless it's proven that they're lying, and having taken opposite positions in the past isn't dispositive. Suspicious but not conclusive.

#3 because President Bush II will be President by delegation until his Supreme Court appointees retire or die--possibly up to 30 years or more from now. Doesn't matter what a liberal Congress passes and a Liberal President signs into law if our right wing Supreme Court overturns everything. A Romney presidency with a Republican Congress will extend that delegated extreme right wing rule by another decade or two or three.